EricTyrrell:
My 'comfy little' modern rover can go anywhere in North America that I can find. Like I said, I'm still looking for these place which require 37"s and solid axles. Short of going to a dedicated off road park and trying obstacles, I can't find them. And I've been looking (pic below was taken in an ORV area... Rubicon owners were blown away that I was in there)!
After 3 threads, I still don't understand the hate. If you don't want a comfortable 4x4, why not just buy a wrangler? Why do you have to hate on the Defender? And why do we keep holding it to this insane standard which is way way way above anything that anyone would actually use one for?
I have little interest in tires over 34" or rock crawling and I've said nothing about the subject.
You have to understand what the Defender was, in the context of its time. Let's go back to 1990, roughly 7 years into its life. It was the most hard working, utilitarian, capable, simple, and configurable vehicle on the market, a pinnacle vehicle of its niche. Some might say the Land Cruiser should take that title, but hey, this is the Land Rover section. It was designed for anyone who needed to get dirty or avoid getting dirty, or transport someone or something anywhere. Explorers, tow-services, fire, science, oil and gas, military, builders, farmers, ranchers, off-roaders, etc. The chassis was durable and the body could be configured to do almost any job, either from the factory or from third-party conversion builders. The diesels were simple and economical. The V8s put a smile on off-roaders faces. It was remarkably easy to repair or modify. The load space, essentially square and barren, was efficient and got filthy without remorse. Pickup or station wagon, in the back you tossed materials and dirty tools. When it got dented or scratched you didn't worry how much the insurance deductible was. It didn't matter. Tomorrow, it was was going to take more abuse anyways. It was just comfortable enough to serve double duty around town. After a job was done, the same vehicle could get you to the post office or market in sufficient comfort (for the time). It was more durable and handled more cargo than a Jeep. It was more capable and rode better than Land Cruisers and other traditional work trucks.
It had its flaws, certainly. In the normal 5-10 year cadence of vehicle development, with proper investment, they would have been fixed along the way, but that didn't happen. It languished with only minimal updates.
The new Defender should be in 2020, what the intent of original Defender was in 1990. The engineering should be as simple as possible while meeting the basic needs of people today. That doesn't mean carburetors or mechanical diesels. It means proven, familiar, and relatively simple technology of today. The fewer critical systems, the better, to reduce what can go wrong, as long as it does the job. Capability should rival the competition, just as it did then. Its design should be as recognizable as possible given regulations. Safety should be improved, but not one avoidable compromise should be made for it. Safety was never the goal, and if its yours, you're shopping the wrong vehicle. However, any new iteration would still be far safer than the original. For a new trick, it should get you there (somewhere) and back reliably, something the original intended, but too often had difficulty executing. It should still lend itself to hard work and appeal to those who do so. A person shopping Land Cruisers, G-wagen Professionals, Wranglers, RAM 1500s, Toyota Tacomas, Ford Rangers/F150s, etc should look forward to seeing what Land Rover has to offer, even if its strengths are a bit different. That's not the new Defender, and it's not even the new Land Rover. Gone are the lodge style dealerships and off-road proving courses, and with it, any focus on anything related to hard work, adventure, or just getting dirty. Instead, now all the techs have to paint their toolboxes black, or buy new ones, just to align with their **************** status symbol driven corporate image. Any allusion to these values are now just lifestyle nods to people who are wealthy enough not to need or intend to get dirty, but who would like to appear as if they could.
